This month, a two-year-long investigation into CIA records on Noam Chomsky concluded with a surprising result: Despite a half-century of brazen anti-war activism and countless overseas speaking engagements, the Central Intelligence Agency has no file on the legendary MIT professor.

"Our searches were thorough and diligent, and it is highly unlikely that repeating those searches would change the result," reads an agency reply to a Freedom of Information Act request for any and all CIA records on Chomsky. The request, obtained by Foreign Policy, was submitted byPortland-based writer Frederic Maxwell, who's writing a book about the renowned linguist.

At stake is not so much the CIA's reputation (the agency's forays into domestic spying in the 60s and 70s are well-documented), but Chomsky's: For what's a towering leftist dissident without a lengthy CIA file -- that ultimate rite of passage for 60s-era dissenters?

Was Chomsky maybe even a little disappointed by the lack of a CIA file? Last, week, I presented him with the CIA's findings, which he hadn't been privy to.

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